The present invention relates generally to the field of business rule management systems, and more particularly to a method for creating a hierarchical business rule model and optimizing a hierarchical business rule model.
A business rule management system (BRMS) is a software system used to define, deploy, execute, monitor, and maintain a variety and a complexity of decision logic that is used by operational systems within an organization or enterprise. A BRMS includes, at least, a repository allowing decision logic to be externalized from core application code, tools allowing both technical developers and business experts to define and manage decision logic, and a runtime environment allowing applications to invoke decision logic managed within the BRMS and execute it using a business rules engine. The decision logic, also referred to as the business rules, includes policies, requirements, and conditional statements that are used to determine the tactical actions that take place in applications and systems. Business rules create an unambiguous statement of how a business uses information to decide a proposition. Using a business rules approach formalizes an enterprise's business rules in a language that both managers and technologists or programmers understand. BRMS allow business experts to define, manage, and deploy an enterprise's operational business as services, available for use by any enterprise application or business process.